


I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face

by TriplePirouette



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Songfic, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-13
Updated: 2012-11-13
Packaged: 2017-11-18 14:33:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/562103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriplePirouette/pseuds/TriplePirouette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Season 1 MSR.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face

**Author's Note:**

> This work was originally posted on June 3, 2002 under a different name. I have since changed to Triple Pirouette and I am posting for archival purposes and have not edited or otherwise changed anything about this story since then, including the rest of the author notes. -3P
> 
> Category: Kinda MSR, Mulder angst, Song-fic, vignette.
> 
> Spoilers: Nothing really- set sometime during season one.
> 
> Rated: PG
> 
> Disclaimer: They're not mine. No, honestly, they're not. Neither is  
> Rex Harrison, Professor Higgins, or My Fair Lady (which, by the way,  
> is a wonderful movie) I'm just playing for a while.
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks to Barenaked Bostonian for beta-ing for me! Love ya babe!
> 
> Notes: SO, I never thought I'd ever do a season one fic, but here I  
> am. It's nothing spectacular, and far from the best piece I've ever  
> written, but the song just called to me when I saw "My Fair Lady" on  
> TV the other day. It is a wonderful movie. Go rent it! NOW! Anyway-  
> let me know what you think, PLEASE!

* * *
    
    
    Mulder stretched out on the dark, soft leather of his couch. It was
    around 2 am, but his insomnia left him restless and flipping
    mindlessly around the channels on his TV.
    
    Being a Saturday, he had gone for his obligatory run, but did nothing
    else truly of note. He had looked at a few case files, but found them
    less than stimulating. Which left him in his current position,
    mindless, and looking for something to occupy the time.
    
    His mind wandered, as it often did, to Scully. Mulder, over the course
    of their partnership, had spent dozens of hours thinking of her. Most
    often it was frustration over thier constantly clashing personalities,
    and sometimes wonder at how they got along so well. Every so often
    he'd get this unbeatable thought about how beautiful a woman she was,
    but in interests of professionalism, he did his best to squash those
    thoughts immedietly.
    
    Tonight, though, he pondered something very different. He pondered her
    life.  So many times, in the middle of cases, he wanted to just put
    her in a cab headed for DC, and never let her look back. So often he
    wanted to shelter her, put her in a bubble, and never let her see the
    horrible things they saw. So many times he got so frustrated with her
    he wanted to just wring her neck. And so many times they encountered
    life threatening situations, and he feared for her life.
    
    Mulder, in thinking of all this lately, had come to a decision. He had
    to remove her from the X-Files. There was something about her
    involvement that spelled doom to him, something that told him she
    would suffer for joining him. So the best thing to do; fire her, get
    her reassigned, anything but let her suffer professional and personal
    suicide by staying with him.
    
    These thoughts always made him a little melancholy, and left him
    feeling defeated, but there was a rumbling in the pit of his stomach
    tonight, like if he went through with this, it would be the wrong
    thing. And yet, it seemed the logical thing to keep her safe. True,
    she was making her own choice, but he'd rather hurt her than see her
    hurt herself. Why?
    
    He asked himself that now. His eyes lazily watched an infomercial
    while he pondered why he cared for her so much. She was just his
    partner. He'd had partners before. They mattered, but never this much.
    
    He grew weary of the unrelenting perkiness of the paid programming,
    and began to flip again. He slowly progressed, and stopped when he
    heard a string of curses come from the TV.
    
    "Damn, damn, damn, damn!" A distinguished englishman swore.
    
    Mulder looked at the channel, and would have moved on, seeing it was
    the classic romance movie station, but for some reason he kept
    watching for a few seconds, just long enough to hear the beginnings of
    a musical number.
    
    "I've grown accustomed to her face."
    
    And just as it was a revelation for Rex Harrison's Professor Higgins,
    it was a revelation for Mulder. That was what was stopping him, what
    made him care for Scully. It was basic, but it was the truth. Slack
    jawed, he put the remote next to him and listened to the rest of the
    song.
    
    "She almost makes the day begin.
    I've grown accustomed to the tune
    She whistles night and noon.
    Her smiles, her frowns,
    Her ups, her downs
    Are second nature to me now;
    Like breathing out and breathing in."
    
    Mulder was almost breathless at how this seemed to be him, this seemed
    to be his relationship with Scully. The words were so simple, and not
    even sung, really. They were kind of half spoken by the actor, but so
    emotional and torn between his professional side and his love for this
    woman he sang for.
    
    "I was serenely independent and content before we met;
    Surely I could always be that way again and yet
    I've grown accustomed to her looks;
    Accustomed to her voice;
    Accustomed to her face."
    
    Serenely independent. Yes, Mulder was before he met Scully, a serenely
    independent man. The question was, could he really be that way again,
    or would sending Scully away hurt him as much as it would hurt her, or
    would it hurt him more?
    
    "But I'm so used to hear her say "Good morning" ev'ry day.
    Her joys, her woes,
    Her highs, her lows,
    Are second nature to me now;
    Like breathing out and breathing in.
    I'm very grateful she's a woman
    and so easy to forget;
    Rather like a habit
    One can always break and yet,
    I've grown accustomed to the trace
    Of something in the air;
    Accustomed to her face."
    
    And Mulder knew right then, that Scully was not a habit he could
    break, but a love he had but yet could not posses. Scully was like
    breathing to him. Her science, her passion, and her rationalism kept
    him on his toes, and he knew that he'd never be the same without her
    now.
    
    He watched the final scene, sad that he'd missed most of the movie.
    Now he wanted to know who this girl he was singing about was really
    like. Hell, he didn't even know what the movie was. Mulder scrambled
    across the couch and pulled out the TV Guide. He smiled, and planned a
    trip to the video store in the morning.

* * *
    
    
    Monday Morning
    
    "Good morning, Mulder." Scully half smiled to him as she continued to
    read some file in front of her. He had just walked into the office and
    handed her a cup of coffee.
    
    He Heard Rex Harrison in his head, *But I'm so used to hear her say
    "Good morning" ev'ry day* and smiled back at Scully. "Good morning.
    What have you got there?"
    
    "Nothing really, just some old paperwork." She looked up as he sat
    across from her at his desk. She gladly sipped her coffee and looked
    unusually relaxed.
    
    "You look... relaxed, Scully. Do something special this weekend?" A
    glimmer was in his eye. He so rarely got to just talk with her.
    
    "Hummm... not really. Just turned off the phone and slept, watched a
    couple of old movies." Mulders eyebrows shot up in his "Oh, really?"
    pose, and she just laughed at him. "Yeah, Mulder. I just rested. You
    know, running around the country after you is not as easy as it
    looks."
    
    He smiled at her and tipped his chair back, putting his feet on the
    desk, "Well, you know, running around the country like me isn't easy,
    either." She smiled at him.
    
    "Well, Mulder, what did you do this weekend?"
    
    "Rented a movie, turned off the phone and didn't sleep, you know, the
    usual." They smiled at each other for another second, Scully slightly
    shaking her head as if to say, "You'll never change, will you?" and
    Mulder had to let out a small chuckle, for if Scully knew that he'd
    rented "My Fair Lady" instead of his usual fare, she'd probably have
    him commited. She gave him a questioning look, then turned back to her
    papers.
    
    "Well, I have to go over these papers for Skinner, then I'm off to
    Quantico. There's an ME out and they asked me to help pick up the
    slack." She got up and walked to the area of the office that had
    become "Her Corner," which really was nothing more than a place to
    plug her laptop in and a chair. She sat down and began to type.
    
    A minute later she heard Mulder clear his throat. "Hey Scully?"
    
    "Yes?"
    
    "Have you ever seen "My Fair Lady"?"
    
    "It's one of my favorites, why?"
    
    "No reason, just one of those random questions."
    
    Scully stared at him for a moment, her eyebrow raised, but he had
    already gone back to pouring over a file.
    
    Another few minutes had gone by before he started humming, and she
    knew the tune. As she gathered her stuff to leave for Quantico, she
    couldn't help but get the tune in her head herself. She almost laughed
    out loud at what it could mean. Mulder, accostumed to her face? Not
    likely. But she couldn't help but send her own message, one that said,
    "I know what you're doing!" to him.
    
    She hummed the tune along with him, but he didn't seem to notice. He
    reached the end of the song and was silent by the time she reached the
    door. She lifted her coat off the rack and turned to him, his face
    still buried in his file.
    
    Putting on her best cockney accent, she surperised Mulder with a
    throaty and dead on quote from the movie, "I'm a good girl, I am."
    Then she smiled, and with a playful wink, she was out of the door.
    
    Mulder laughed out loud, and smiled. He had decided not to make her
    leave, but to allow her to continue to make her own decisions. "My
    Fair Lady" was not really like his situation, but it was still a good
    movie, and made him realize a few things along the way.
    
    Going back to his file, he sang softly to himself, "I'm very grateful
    she's a woman and so easy to forget; Rather like a habit one can
    always break and yet, I've grown accustomed to the trace of something
    in the air; accustomed to her face."
    
    Fin
     
    


End file.
